The Splendid Spur Part 27

Bodmin town is naught but a narrow street, near on a mile long, and widening toward the western end. It lies mainly along the south side of a steep vale, and this May morning as Joan and I left the moors and rode down to it from northward, already we could hear trumpets blowing, the big drum sounding, and all the bawling voices and hubbub of the fair. Descending, we found the long street lin'd with booths and shows, and nigh blocked with the crowd: for the revel began early and was now in full swing. And the crew of gipsies, whifflers, mountebanks, fortune tellers, cut-purses and quacks, mix'd up with honest country faces, beat even the rabble I had seen at Wantage.

Now my own first business was with a tailor: for the clothes I wore when I rode into Temple, four months back, had been so sadly messed with blood, and afterward cut, to free them from my wound, that now all the tunic I wore was of sackcloth, contrived and st.i.tch'd together by Joan. So I made at once for a decent shop, where luckily I found a suit to fit me, one taken (the tailor said) off a very promising young gentleman that had the misfortune to be kill'd on Braddock Down. Arrayed in this, I felt myself again, and offered to take Joan to see the Fat Woman.

We saw her, and the Aethiop, and the Rhinoceros (which put me in mind of poor Anthony Killigrew), and the Pig-fac'd Baby, and the Cudgel play; and presently halted before a Cheap Jack, that was crying his wares in a prodigious loud voice, near the town wall.

'Twas a meagre, sharp-visag'd fellow with a grey chin beard like a billy goat's; and (as fortune would have it) spying our approach, he picked out a mirror from his stock and holding it aloft, addressed us straight--

"What have we here," cries he, "but a pair o' lovers coming? and what i' my hand but a lover's hourgla.s.s? Sure the stars of heav'n must have a hand in this conjuncture--and only thirteen pence, my pretty fellow, for a gla.s.s that will tell the weather i' your sweetheart's face, and help make it fine."

There were many country fellows with their maids in the crowd, that turned their heads at this address; and as usual the women began.

"Tis Joan o' the Tor!"

"Joan's picked up wi' a sweetheart--tee-hee!--an' us reckoned her'd forsworn mankind!"

"Who is he?"

"Some furriner, sure: that likes garlic."

"He's bought her no ribbons yet."

"How should he, poor lad; that can find no garments upon her to fasten 'em to?"

And so on, with a deal of spiteful laughter. Some of these sayings were half truth, no doubt: but the truthfullest word may be infelix.

So noting a dark flush on Joan's cheek, I thought to end the scene by taking the Cheap Jack's mirror on the spot, to stop his tongue, and then drawing her away.

But in this I was a moment too late; for just as I reached up my hand with the thirteen pence, and the grinning fellow on the platform bent forward with his mirror, I heard a coa.r.s.er jest, a rush in the crowd, and two heads go _crack!_ together like eggs.

'Twas two of Joan's tormentors she had taken by the hair and served so: and dropping them the next instant had caught the Cheap Jack's beard, as you might a bell rope, and wrench'd him head-foremost off his stand, my thirteen pence flying far and wide. Plump he fell into the crowd, that scatter'd on all hands as Joan pummelled him: and _whack, whack!_ fell the blows on the poor idiot's face, who scream'd for mercy, as though Judgment Day were come.

No one, for the minute, dared to step between them: and presently Joan looking up, with arm raised for another buffet, spied a poor Astrologer close by, in a red and yellow gown, that had been reading fortunes in a tub of black water beside him, but was now broken off, dismayed at the hubbub. To this tub she dragged the Cheap Jack and sent him into it with a round souse. The black water splashed right and left over the crowd. Then, her wrath sated, Joan faced the rest, with hands on hips, and waited for them to come on.

Not a word had she spoken, from first to last: but stood now with hot cheeks and bosom heaving. Then, finding none to take up her challenge, she strode out through the folk, and I after her, with the mirror in my hand; while the Cheap Jack picked himself out of the tub, whining, and the Astrologer wip'd his long white beard and soil'd robe.

Outside the throng was a carriage, stopp'd for a minute by this tumult, and a servant at the horses' heads. By the look of it, 'twas the coach of some person of quality; and glancing at it I saw inside an old gentleman with a grave venerable face, seated. For the moment it flash'd on me I had seen him before, somewhere: and cudgell'd my wits to think where it had been. But a second and longer gaze a.s.sured me I was mistaken, and I went on down the street after Joan.

She was walking fast and angry; nor when I caught her up and tried to soothe, would she answer me but in the shortest words. Woman's justice, as I had just learn'd, has this small defect--it goes straight enough, but mainly for the wrong object. Which now I proved in my own case.

"Where are you going, Joan?"

"To 'Fifteen b.a.l.l.s" stable, for my horse."

"Art not leaving the fair yet, surely!"

"That I be, tho'. Have had fairing enow--wi' a man!"

Nor for a great part of the way home would she speak to me. But meeting, by Pound Scawens (a hamlet close to the road), with some friends going to the fair, she stopp'd for a while to chat with them, whilst I rode forward: and when she overtook me, her brow was clear again.

"Am a hot headed fool, Jack, and have spoil'd thy day for thee."

"Nay, that you have not," said I, heartily glad to see her humble, for the first time in our acquaintance: "but if you have forgiven me that which I could not help, you shall take this that I bought for you, in proof."

And pulling out the mirror, I lean'd over and handed it to her.

"What i' the world be this?" she ask'd, taking and looking at it doubtfully.

"Why, a mirror."

"What's that?"

"A gla.s.s to see your face in," I explained.

"Be this my face?" She rode forward, holding up the gla.s.s in front of her. "Why, what a handsome looking gal I be, to be sure! Jack, art certain 'tis my very own face?"

"To be sure," said I amazed.

"Well!" There was silence for a full minute, save for our horses'

tread on the high road. And then--

"Jack, I be powerful dirty!"

This was true enough, and it made me laugh. She looked up solemnly at my mirth (having no sense of a joke, then or ever) and bent forward to the gla.s.s again.

"By the way," said I, "did you mark a carriage just outside the crowd, by the Cheap Jack's booth?--with a white-hair'd gentleman seated inside?"

Joan nodded. "Master Hannibal Tingcomb: steward o' Gleys."

"What!"

I jumped in my saddle, and with a pull at the bridle brought Molly to a standstill.

"Of Gleys?" I cried. "Steward of Sir Deakin Killigrew that was?"

"Right, lad, except the last word. 'That _is_,' should'st rather say."

"Then you are wrong, Joan: for he's dead and buried, these five months. Where is this house of Gleys? for to-morrow I must ride there."

"'Tis easy found, then: for it stands on the south coast yonder, and no house near it: five mile from anywhere, and sixteen from Temple, due south. Shall want thee afore thou startest, Jack. Dear, now!

who'd ha' thought I was so dirty?"

The cottage door stood open as we rode into the yard, and from it a faint smoke came curling, with a smell of peat. Within I found the smould'ring turves scattered about as on the day of my first arrival, and among them Joan's father stretch'd, flat on his face: only this time the eat was curl'd up quietly, and lying between the old man's shoulder blades.

"Drunk again," said Joan shortly.

But looking more narrowly, I marked a purplish stain on the ground by the old man's mouth, and turned him softly over.

"Joan," said I, "he's not drunk--he's dead!"

She stood above us and looked down, first at the corpse, then at me, without speaking for a time: at last---